Visitor from the past
by Mrs.AddieMontgomeryShepherd
Summary: "The past is like a hand full of dust - it filters through your fingers, disappearing little by little. I wish, for one day, I could go back. In another life, I would do things differently." - Katy Perry. A missed conversation between two past lovers.


**Author's Note: Just a conversation I thought should've taken place in "Life before his eyes".**

**Disclaimer: All Donald Bellisario's. **

* * *

"_The past is like a hand full of dust – it filters through your fingers, disappearing little by little._

_I wish, for one day, I could go back. In another life, I would do things differently."-_Katy Perry

* * *

People come and go, but Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs sits at the diner's bar, alone, glaring at his cooling coffee.

The bell above the door rings again and he hears heels clicking on the floor.

Jethro ignores it, until a smell he came to love long ago crawls into his nostrils.

He clothes his eyes for a moment and just breathes.

When was the last time he smelled that perfume, so rich and so uniquely hers?

He's aware that someone sits down next to him, so close that he can feel the warmth radiating from the person's skin.

And then he hears it.

Hears her voice saying: "_Steak au poivre_ and a frisée salad, please. And a glass of bourbon, too."

Gibbs blinks once and turns his head slowly to the woman next to him.

The first thing he sees is the hair, always the red hair. It tumbles down her back in thick curls, looking like fire against her emerald summer dress.

She turns a little; takes him in with shining green eyes.

He never thought he'd see her again, but here she is, smiling, breathing, _warm;_ a treasured memory of their last day in Paris that came to life.

"Special Agent Gibbs."

"Madame Director."

The bartender places a glass of bourbon in front of her. Jethro points at it, asking:

"Still your favorite poison, Jen?"

"What can I say, Jethro? Other than you can be pretty influencing."

Influence.

Shannon's words come rushing back to him:

"_If we hadn't had died you wouldn't have joined NIS, and you wouldn't have become an agent._

_No Tony, no Ziva, no team."_

No Jenny.

If he hadn't lost his girls, he would've never become her partner.

Perhaps he's being chauvinistic – she'd most likely say that, if she could hear him thinking – but then she would've never become the hell of an agent she was.

Maybe she wouldn't have gotten the order to kill Svetlana, because Morrow wouldn't have sent a probie to Paris in the first place.

Svetlana probably would've died the day she was supposed to, never being able to sent some hitmen with the order to kill Jenny.

In another life, she would have never died trying to protect him.

"Jen? Gotta break Rule 6."

"Don't.", she says and abandons her bourbon in favor of his coffee.

"So you're not here to blame me for every should've,would've, could've, didn't."

"Not every, no."

"But a few." And he thinks he knows which ones.

"Probably. But you're not the only one that made choices over the years. I did too, and some of my choices weren't the smartest ones.

I decided to give Tony and Ziva the day off when I heard the old code.

I was the one who told you no off the job when I became director.

I left you in Europe."

"But I let you go. What if I had stopped you?"

"If I had let you stop me, then..."

"_... Leon **Vance** is the new director? Oh, we're doomed."_

"_You jealous, Jen?", Jethro asks and kisses her temple, "You could've taken the promotion."_

"_This team has already lost one of its agents. I'm not gonna go ass-kissing on the hill, while Ari Haswari is still out there. Besides, I like to think my talents as an agent would be wasted doing paperwork all day. And I would have to make peace with all the sister-agencies you'd managed to piss off while I wasn't looking."_

"So, you would've never become first female director of a federal agency."

"Yes.", Jenny says, "Morrow would've often tried to make me the leader of my own team, and I would've declined just as often. He'd also would've tried to get me to accept joined undercover-assignments with Mossad. But again, I would've declined.

I would've never worked with Ziva in Cairo. She would've died there, but that's not all..."

_Ari's gun is pointing directly at Jethro's heart. Jenny knows he'll pull the trigger any minute if no body is going to stop him. Sadly, she and Jethro are held hostage in their own basement. No one knows that they are in danger, because the new director didn't believe what they said about Ari. Damn him._

_If she could just... ah, well. Her hands are free. Thank god that the ropes in the basement are old and porous.  
She has no time left to lose; in one swift movement, she jumps in front of Jethro, flaunting herself at Ari, the gun he failed to take from her drawn._

_Two gunshots echo through the silence of the basement._

_Two bodies go down._

Gibbs sighs. "You would've died trying to protect me.", he says.

"And you would've retired and retreated to Mexico.", she continues, "You see, sometimes saying no is a good choice."

This time, he remembers something Jen herself said years ago:

"_Once upon a time I would've asked you to stay. And I wouldn't have taken a no for an answer."_

"What if I hadn't said no to you when I tricked you into taking care of that kid, Jen? What would have happened if I went with you to L.A. instead of Tony and Ziva?"

"To us or them?"

"To you."

Jenny shrugs. "I would've had more time with you. But I would've died either way."

The smile she shows him now is a sad one.

Time, he thinks, yeah, there was never enough of it for them.

He reaches for her and pushes a strand of hair behind her ear.

Even if its been years now, he still sometimes dreams of Paris and the Jenny he had to leave behind when he came back to the USA.

"Do you wish, for one day, you could go back?", he suddenly wants to know.

"Often, Jethro. And I also like to think that, in another life, I would do things differently.

You and me, though, that wasn't in the script of life for the long run.

But if I could go back, I'd always chose to go back to Paris."

The bell above the door rings again, just as Jen squeezes his hand.

"_Semper Fi_, Jethro.", she murmurs before she slides down gracefully from the stool and links arms with a younger version of himself that just came in.

"She was a great agent, probie.", Mike Franks says and takes Jennys place while Gibbs watches her go.

"Hell of a director, too. Liked her."

Gibbs takes Jenny's abandoned bourbon and sways the liquor slowly in its glass.

"I let her down, Mike. I was her partner, I should've been with her in that diner and..."

"And what? You probably would've died as well. We all make choices, probie.

Jenny Shepard chose to act on the Unspoken Rule and she knew very well that there was a high chance she wouldn't make it out alive. But for you, she'd do it all over again because she loved you."


End file.
